Page 132 of Nine-Tenths

Holy shit.

She'smad.

When she opens the door, I expect Dav to barge in. But he stands on the other side of the threshold like a forcefield is keeping him out. His hands are balled into fists at his side and he's significantly more draconic looking now than an artful splatter of scales. His tail lashes back and forth behind him with a graceful fury that warms my heart.

I'm fine,I mouth at him, even though I have no idea if it's true.

I'm here, he mouths back.

Which does, actually, make me feel better.

"She's not a pet, she's a person," I grind out, once the door has swung closed again and Laura's out of hearing range. She may becomplicit with this pseudo-slavery; it doesn't mean I have tolikeit.

"Good lord, you sound like Alva," Simcoe scoffs.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Of course you will. Listen well to me, boy. It is time you also learned your place. Humans domesticated wolves, and now you have dogs," Simcoe sneers. "And dragons domesticated humans."

"Fuck you," I snap. "I’m not a dog!"

"And still you snarl at me."

I bite back the rest of what I want to say and just bare my teeth at him.

"You can come in now, Alva," Simcoe says softly, once he’s sure I’ve been leashed.

There was no reason to keep him out. It was just Simcoe proving that he's the one in power. Dav opens the door, the clicking door handle loud as a gunshot in the tense, thick air. Dav enters, makes a small bow to Simcoe, and walks to my side slowly, elegantly. His tail winds around my ankle.

"You are both too young to know this, but if you continue to rock the boat, you will capsize us all," Simcoe sighs.

The tight, horrible feeling of being caged rushes back, settling like permafrost in my bones.

"The Gift," Dav says. Simcoe nods like a melodramatic stage villain. "All this time I was told that it was… it was exclusive. But that's not true."

"Of course not. Do you really think we didn't already know everything your little friend discovered in that lab?"

"It’s mutually beneficial symbiosis," I say.

"It surpassedmutually beneficialcenturies ago," Simcoe snaps. "Humans breed fast enough that they'll overwhelm the world if we let them."

"I thought the more humans the better, right? That's what all this Empire-building bullshit is about."

"There is being wealthy," Simcoe allows. "And then there is being greedy to the point of endangering society. Just as the human One Percent is taxed heavily on their excess money, dragons must also pay for excesses."

Dav scoffs. "So we're taxed by being denied our natural desire to serve and uplift, for the greater good?"

"Just so," Simcoe says. "We voluntarily deny ourselves in order to protect our territories, and our rule."

"I see," Dav chokes out.

"I don't!"

"Humans live for a long time in our care," Simcoe explains patiently, as if I'm the village idiot. "It is our duty to ensure that it is therighthumans. And not so many of them that they endanger the management of the climate and environment."

I don't like this second revelation of the evening any more than I liked the first.

They'relettinghumans get sick.